How to swap the order of wall light switches
Swapping the physical order of light switches to match your room layout is difficult because electricians often cut the behind-the-wall wires too short to let you rearrange them. Attempting a DIY fix without proper testing risks painful electrical shocks if the circuit isn't fully verified first.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Unscrewing the devices and rearranging them without disconnecting wires if there is enough slack
- 2Pigtailing a small jumper length of wire
- 3Leaving the switch configuration as it is
- 4Splicing the wires in the original junction box, leaving it blanked off, and running extensions through the studs to the new box location
- 5Pulling the wires up to the attic to splice them in a junction box and extending them down to the new location
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“My brain tells me that the exterior light should be all the way to the right since it’s closest to the door. But I’m not sure if I can fix this myself or not.”source ↗
“As someone who has recently shocked himself. Buy the $15 current testing wand and use it.”source ↗
“I have the same exact problem at home, we constantly turn off the wrong lights because of the same logic. The problem is the wires were cut too short to allow the switches to be swapped.”source ↗
“Just not sure how to reconnect the wires to run them to the new box.”source ↗
“Makes sense, I was just having trouble with it lol”source ↗
“I need help figuring out how to move these 2 switches from the 2 gang spot to where the 1 gang box is.”source ↗
Where this came up
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